In a fabrication process of a semiconductor device, a defect on a wafer such as a foreign substance may cause a defective product. Therefore, in order to improve yield of the product, it is preferable to take countermeasures which detect the defect during the fabrication process of the semiconductor device, which immediately identify a defect origin, and which do not generate the same defect in the semiconductor device that is fabricated successively.
An inspection device is used for detecting the defect. In addition, a detailed observation device is used for identifying the defect origin, and the detected defect is photographed under magnification by the detailed observation device in order to generate a defect image. A user identifies the defect origin by observing a shape of the photographed defect.
Hence, in order to improve efficiency for photographing and observing the defect as well as identifying the defect origin in the detailed observation device, technologies of ADR (Automatic Defect Review) and ADC (Automatic Defect Classification) have been proposed. In the ADR, a defect image can be automatically photographed using an image processing technology. In the ADC, a classification of, for example, a type of defect such as a disconnection and a short circuit, and further the classification whether or not the defect exists in an under layer, can be automatically conducted (see, for example, Patent Documents 1 and 2).